1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for carrying out test firings for determining the quality of ammunition, comprising a barrel capable of adjustment in elevation and azimuth fixedly mounted in a support, and an automatic adjusting device for resetting the barrel to its desired direction, as well as a preferred use of the device for certain types of ammunition.
2. Description of Background Art
Devices of the above-mentioned kind, also called firing machines, are known. They are used to check the dispersion of the system elements of barrel weapons. For this purpose, the barrel is mounted on a support, after which a number of shots are fired at a target to determine the dispersion pattern (the so-called dispersion pattern target). The dispersion of the hits about the dispersion pattern target center is used as a measure of the accuracy of the weapon and the ammunition.
Such firing machines were already described by Richard Mahrholdt in the "Waffenlexikon" (F.C. Mayer-Verlag, Munchen-Hamburg, 1952; comp. pp. 362, 363). Particular mention is made there of a firing machine by Walter Gehmann, the resetting of which to its initial position, after each shot, is effected automatically by two springs arranged in a V-position. This, however, is very far from an adjustment device in the sense of an accurate resetting.
In general, the barrel of a gun is fixedly clamped in a mostly heavy and massively built support which, for absorbing the recoil, is designed to be movable in the firing direction, with the attempt being made, using springs or rubber components, to brake the recoil produced during firing and to force back the support to its initial position. Such moving systems are mostly guided by means of a sort of guide rail associated with a block fixedly anchored in the ground. In this design, the block forms the inert reference system to which the firing direction is related. Both the support and the reference system must be heavily built in order that a major portion of the forces generated by the recoil will be absorbed by mass inertia. During the resetting of the barrel or of the entire weapon, systematic errors are produced involving the accurate alignment with respect to the dispersion pattern target, as a certain amount of clearance must be provided between moving components and also because of the presence of frictional forces. With the machine tools used, this error is of an order of magnitude of about 1 mrad (0.057.degree.), which, at a disk distance of 100 m, corresponds to a dispersion error of as much as 10 cm.
Further errors are liable to occur due to the fact that the block is set vibrating and that, eventually, its anchorage is displaced due to the impact loads produced in the course of the firing sequences. Finally, the elastic system used takes a considerable time to reset, producing a low firing rate.
From DE-A-37 03 436 it is known to use, for the aiming of a barrel weapon or a gun barrel at a dispersion pattern target, optical means including lasers as the light source and component of an aiming-point generator. The barrel weapon and the aiming-point generator are mutually coupled via a control unit, means being provided for the setting, in elevation and azimuth, of the aiming-point generator for the purpose of synchronous adjustment of the light point in accordance with the aiming of the projectile barrel. At the same time, the more distant image of the dispersion pattern target is observed on a T.V. monitor and the elevation and azimuth values of the barrel weapon are manually altered until the light point is located on the aiming cross of the dispersion pattern target. This enables the performance of target-diagram firing also at low visibility, for example during fog, snowfall or darkness, which is a declared object of the invention.
Here, too, the above-mentioned disadvantages are unqualifiedly valid, since the barrel mounting functions as the essential point of reference for the measurements. In view of the complex data linkage, including the positioning of the monitor, the angles of view, etc., accuracy of the adjustment is not very satisfactory. Due to the lack of an automatic setting of the barrel, the firing rate that can be realized is rather low.